remove all of a file type from a directory and its children

Question

I was under impression that

rm -r *.xml

would remove all file from parent and child however:

*.xml: No such file or directory
         


        

Answer 1

I'm assuming you want to remove all *.xml files recursively (within current and all sub directories). To do that, use find:

find . -name "*.xml" -exec rm {} \;

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On a side note, recursive deletion scares me. On my saner days, I tend to precede that step with:

find . -name "*.xml" 

(without the -exec bit) just to see what might get deleted before taking the leap. I advice you do the same. Your files will thank you.